Part one
A cyborg manifesto is a brilliant article authored by Donna Haraway. It is solely aimed at criticizing the traditional notions of feminism, especially through putting greater emphasis on the issue of identity rather than affinity. In this article, Haraway uses the image or metaphor of a cyborg to urge feminists to move beyond the retrogressive limitations of traditional feminism, gender and politics. The idea of Haraway’s Cyborg calls for a non-essentialized and material-semiotic metaphor that is considered capable of uniting diffuse political coalitions through the notion of affinity (Haraway, 1991, p.153). She clearly addresses the rift between a feminist discourse and also the dominant language of the western patriarchal. In this manifesto, Donna Haraway advocates for women to move beyond the aspect of essentialism and naturalism.
Dona Haraway explains numerous concepts in the course of driving her arguments home. Some of these concepts include simulation, simulacrum, hyper-reality and post human. She uses socialist feminism, which is also known as the materialist feminism, a theory in Marxism to argue how the woman can be liberated. She explains that, for a woman to liberated, the principle approach to achieve this would be through removing all the factors that causes woman’s oppression. Nonetheless, the whole story revolves around the idea of the cyborg that the author intends to use so as to explain herself to the issue of traditional feminism. She explains that, the Cyborg does, however, not exists in the form of culture or nature, but rather, as a hybrid. It is not limited by the presence of traditional binarisms and dualist’s paradigms (Haraway, 1991, p.167). She claims that the cyborg exists in the form of an unfettered self. It is of a polymorphous perversity.
Part two
According to my opinion about the issue discussed by Donna Haraway in this article, I am most amazed by how she manages to define the metaphor of a cyborg merely not as a combination of human and a machine. Nonetheless, Haraway frequently refers to the combination of an individual and a machine so as to be able to clearly define the mythology of the cyborg. I am of the opinion that, the crucial part of the article is to be able to demonstrate the many ways through which we have already made the cyborg a social reality. I think that, Haraway was categorical about the issue of a cyborg and history and how the cyborg will never look backward. Additionally, I am of that, according to the period when this article was being written, in the late 1986, when Ronald Reagan was running a system of the star wars defence system that would spend enormous portions of the country’s budget to fund various forms of oppression. In addition, I think that Haraway, as a materialistic critic, she was a bit sympathetic with the various impulses that propelled radical feminism (Stewart, 2014). While her ironic dream of a common language was greatly inspired by the works ad argument of some of the spiritual Eco feminists, she also appears to fight their essentializing domination. She fights patriarchy with the approach of modernist’s constructions of earth mothers and female as nature.
Part 3
- Does Haraway have mixed feelings in regard to the socialism contribution to the idea of affinity politics since she at one point, lauds the Marxism’s emphasis about women building unities, while, at some other point, she admits the issue of inheritance of Marxism inheritance?
- Haraway is troubled by the removal of race and that concept of agency from Mackinnon’s theory of the essential woman.
- Is it irresponsible for feminists to cling to the notion that they can be able to return to nature where such fantasy is economically impossible for the poor woman?
Part 4
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/02/05/to-be-happy-must-admit-women-and-men-arent-equal/
I selected this particular Url because I found it perfectly relating with the arguments put forth by Donna Haraway. The author of this article appear to be a feminists who believes that for this to move on smoothly, men and women should not be perceived/viewed as equal beings.
References
Haraway, Donna (1991)"A Cyborg Manifesto -Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late
Twentieth Century," In Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature (New York; Rutledge, Pp.149-181.
Stewart, F. (2014). German Feminist Queer Crime Fiction: Politics, Justice and Desire. McFarland.
McLaren, M. A. (2002). Feminism, Foucault, and embodied subjectivity. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press.
